I’ve started reading Mark Mazower’s [amazon_link id=”0141011939″ target=”_blank” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_link]. It traces the idea of international governance back to its origins in the early 19th century. Two chapters in, I’ve already learned a lot. One striking point is that a kind of ‘future mentality’ emerged in the mid-years of the 19th century, and helps explain the acceleration of economic and political change:

“Historians of overseas European settlement have recently begun to argue that what was once written off as a boom/bust mentality of the colonial frontier needs to be taken more seriously as a kind of bet on the future that emerged quite suddenly in the 19th century in response to the shrinkage of time and space, a moment when the pace of change seemed to be accelerating. This ‘future thinking’ drove both capitalism and colonialism. It expressed itself in speculative fevers and land grabs, survived the inevitable crashes, failures and disappointments, and found confirmation in rapidly growing cities, new transcontinental communications, and a succession of technological marvels.”

Economists pay so much attention to modelling expectations, but don’t think enough beyond the mathematical formalities about how the way people think about both the future and the past determines the decisions and choices they make today. The only place I’ve come across this kind of thinking modelled is an old (1991) Paul Krugman QJE paper, History versus Expectations.

I like Mark Mazower’s books, having read both his [amazon_link id=”0140241590″ target=”_blank” ]Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century[/amazon_link] and[amazon_link id=”0007120222″ target=”_blank” ] Salonica, City of Ghosts[/amazon_link]. More on this one when I’ve got my head around his thesis.

[amazon_image id=”0141011939″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_image]